DUSHANBE, April 8, Asia-Plus  -- A special medical team has been set up at the Dushanbe emergency hospital for taking mental patients to mental hospitals, Deputy Health Minister Sohibnazar Rahmonov, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.  

            According to him, the tem has been set up in connection with an acute attack of mental diseases in the spring.  “Earlier, their relatives themselves had had to take mental patients to hospitals,” said the deputy minister.  “The team is provided with an ambulance car.”  

            In the Soviet time, such teams had functioned in all regions; at present, “this service has still been in Dushanbe.”   

According to the Ministry of Health (MoH), 17 medical facilities for people with mental disabilities currently function in the country, and 42,000 people have to date been registered with the Republican Center for Psychiatry.   The budget provides on average 6.00 somonis per hospital mental patient. 

In the meantime, seven mental hospitals in Dushanbe, Kulob, Qurghon Teppa, Khujand, Isfara, Tursunzoda and Rudaki have been provided with generators with capacity of 23-30 kW each and diesel fuel under the project supported the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) helps Tajik medical facilities make preparations for the next winter.  As it had been reported earlier, taking into consideration critical situation in medical facilities in Tajikistan, which was affected by unusually cold weather and severe electricity shortages last winter, ECHO has financed a project proposal by the Netherlands Red Cross (NRC) and Tajikistan’s Red Crescent Society (RCS) for providing large mental hospitals with generators and fuel.